Sebastian County Seat of Justice

The courthouse at this marker is the work of the New Deal. Fort Smith's courts met in downtown stores for more than a decade before the county built a four-story courthouse with a clock tower, designed by Nier and Byram. The county razed it and put up the Art Deco building that stands now, paid for with Public Works Administration money. It cost $462,804, under a $495,548 budget, and was finished in 1937. It also houses Fort Smith City Hall, the only dual-purpose public building of its kind in Arkansas, and joined the National Register in 1993.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Smith National Cemetery — steps away
  The post burial ground of the first Fort Smith, kept since 1819, holding its first commander, more than 400 Confederate dead, Judge Parker and veterans of every war since.
• Fort Smith National Historic Site — 0.2 mi
  Two army forts, a federal courthouse and a basement jail on the bluff where the Poteau meets the Arkansas, from the 1817 riflemen to Judge Parker's court and its gallows.
• U.S. Marshals Museum — 0.9 mi
  A star-shaped museum on the Arkansas riverbank, opened in 2023, telling the story of the nation's oldest federal law enforcement agency and the marshals who worked out of Fort Smith.
• Van Buren Historic District — 5.5 mi
  Eight blocks of Main Street on the Arkansas River, from Phillips Landing, with 1889 banks, a beer depot and a railroad depot, on the National Register since 1976.

More markers nearby

• Sebastian County California Gold Seekers — steps away
• Confederate Occupation of Fort Smith — steps away
• Union Occupation of Fort Smith — steps away
• Van Buren Raid — 5.1 mi